Gideon: The Horse That Saved Texas

by Jack Stanley

Author Jeff Carroll first published this story in his collection of Texas history called Legendary Texas. This screenplay brings the tale to life. A horse with the peculiar fear of running water, is given to 13-year-old boy in 1836 by a Mexican rancher fleeing the Mexican army. The boy’s mother owns a small hotel in Fort Bend, Texas. The horse was taken by Mexican soldiers on their way North to the fight known as The Alamo. Even though the boy and his mother go to Santa Anna’s camp to recover the horse, the general tell his soldiers to hide the horse. In the final battle of the war, San Jacinto is where Texas wins it freedom with the help of the stolen horse.

161 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 8, 2013

About the author

Jack R. Stanley is an award winning novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. As an officer and combat photographer in Vietnam he was awarded the Bronze Star. Yet he says, “When you’re in a firefight and everybody else on both side have guns while you have a camera --- you get to change your pants a lot.”
After his military service he received both his M.A. and his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in Radio-TV-Film. His doctoral dissertation was on the long running TV series GUNSMOKE. Stanley also received two of Michigan¹s most prestigious creative writing awards
Still married to his gifted high school sweetheart, Stanley spent 30 years teaching Theatre-TV-Film in deep-south Texas at The University of Texas-Pan American. He directed for stage at The University Theatre, produced and directed fifteen student staffed, cast, and crewed feature film --- writing most of the original screenplays. A few of his credits are available on IMDB.com.
He now lives in the Texas Panhandle where he writes his fiction and runs his blog, www.TheFictionWritersNotebook.com . His webpage is www.jackrstanley.com .